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Agent Nelson Brooks
Alessandro Ghiacchio was the alias of government agent Nelson Brooks during Brooks' infiltration of the Thorne crime family in Gotham City. Pre Nightwing: Escalation Nelson Alexander Brooks was born in Santiago, Chile, and adopted by a mysterious government agency when he was six months of age. Not much is known about Brooks' birthfamily, except to the agency who took him in. Brooks was trained from birth as an agent of stealth and deception. Quickly rising through the ranks and outperforming many other agents along the way, it was clear that Brooks was very skilled with acting and deception. He was idealistic, strong-willed and intelligent, but also questioned orders from time-to-time, and many of his higher-ups were concerned about his semi-resistant attitude. One of Brooks' foremost trainers who strongly pushed for his success was a redhead from Maine named Rinoa Lockheart. Not long after their meeting and Brooks' subsequent graduation from the Academy, Lockheart and Brooks began a romantic relationship, which was disallowed in the agency. At age 23, Brooks was sent to Peru undercover to infiltrate a dangerous drug operation. A year later, after deep undercover work, Brooks' work was instrumental in ending the reign of a drug lord. That summer, Brooks and Lockheart took a vacation to St. Thomas. Brooks always looked back on the time in St. Thomas as the only time he was truly free and happy. As the vacation drew to a close, Brooks was contacted by Director Amanda Waller to go to London with Lockheart and aide an agency operation there. Brooks and Lockheart traveled to London to aide Agents Hartnell and Loechel in procuring kryptonite fragments from British Intergang members after a recent bout between career criminal Metallo and Superman had leveled parts of the city. On the plane back to the U.S., Brooks and Lockheart began to have problems when Brooks started to question what the agency was really doing and who they truly worked for. He felt the kryptonite could've easily been turned over to the Atom, a member of the Justice League, or someone who'd keep it for safekeeping. Lockheart told Brooks that it was for their own good, in case Superman ever went rogue. Continuing questioning, Lockheart defended the agency and assured Brooks they were indeed working for the 'good guys'. Brooks took the argument further when he pointed out Lockheart never seemed to question, and was just falling in line with everyone else, as well as discovering she was withholding knowledge of Brooks' birthfamily and origins from him. Because of the agency's greater goals in mind, angry at his questioning, and out of fear for the agency's discovery of their relationship, Lockheart broke up with Brooks. Operation: Alessandro Ghiacchio To Brooks, his objective was to further eradicate the mob presence in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. To the agency and Waller, they had other ideas. Because of her knowledge of Gotham City, Lockheart was chosen as Brooks' commanding officer. Brooks was to check in with her regularly and give her updates and any information as he went along. The operation was deemed "Operation: Alessandro Ghiacchio". Brooks, under his Ghiacchio guise, started on the street level, doing drug deals among other lowlives in areas of the city which were ripe with drug activity. Eventually, his work got him noticed by Query & Echo, who worked for Edward Nygma, a.k.a. the Riddler, who was occupying Kittredge Park. Warned to stop doing drug deals for fear of losing his life, Ghiacchio relented. The Russian Koslov family attacked the bar Query & Echo were confronting Ghiacchio in, and Ghiacchio, alongside the two bombshells, fought back against them, warding them off and protecting Query. Impressed by his chivalry and dedication, Query asked Riddler to give Ghiacchio a shot. Ghiacchio worked well alongside Query & Echo and the Riddler, gaining their respect for his solid worksmanship. Query never forgot Ghiacchio's courage and was enamored with him since that day. They began a relationship that was mainly based on lust. Brooks continued to build his way into getting noticed by the Thorne crime family. Joining the Thorne Family On an operation where Ghiacchio knew they would be going into direct conflict with Antoine Rotelli, who worked for the Thorne family as one of their top enforcers, Ghiacchio knew the time was fast approaching where he could jump ship. His relationship with Query was growing increasingly unstable due to her bouts of psychosis. At a local bar Ghiacchio would frequent, Candace Thorne entered alongside several enforcers of her's offering him a proposal to betray the Riddler's gang and join their's. Ghiacchio refused, and he was beat within an inch of his life. She continuously asked him, and he continued to refuse. Only when he was at death's door did he agree. Finding Lockheart at their meeting spot by the beach, she was awestruck with the condition he was in. She nursed him back to health. It was the closest the two had been in a long time. The next day, Ghiacchio met with Antoine Rotelli and an enforcer named Cardona, and with his help, earned back a large sector of Gotham from the Riddler's cartel designated as 'Miller's Point'. Query, Echo and the Riddler never forgot, and swore revenge. For Query, it was the ultimate betrayal. "Something's not right..." Brooks rose through the ranks of the Thorne family for another year. As time continued to slip away, Brooks began to immerse himself more fully into his alias. The Riddler had by this time etched an uneasy agreement with the Thorne crime family over control of Kittredge Park. Brooks' responsibilities grew from piggybacking on various operations to more trigger-time, as well as earning Don Giordano Thorne's trust. Brooks was to be an enforcer alongside Cardona with the Thorne family's drugrunner Sofia Chase, selling drugs to eastern Kittredge Park locals. Don Giordano also ordered Brooks to begin watching over his niece, Scarlet, who was a stripper at an establishment Giordano owned. Giordano suspected Scarlet was seeing a cop on the side, and if she was, Brooks was to eliminate said cop. Rotelli & Candace led Brooks on a small operation to take back an area lying between east & west Kittredge Park governed by the Bertolucci family, but Query & Echo beat them to the punch. After a brief standoff, the two groups went their separate ways, with the Riddler's cartel still in control of the west and the Thornes the east. That evening, Brooks met with Lockheart at their usual meeting spot by the south shore of Gotham. He was advised to continue moving forward with Operation: Ghiacchio, but that a murderous vigilante named The Huntress was making her presence felt, and that with Ghiacchio's current standing in the Thorne mafia, he could become a target. Brooks informed Lockheart of his duties with Scarlet, how the mob was dealing with the Huntress' murders, and Rotelli's constant side missions occurring in the Thorne mob, and that he felt uneasy and that something wasn't right. Lockheart assured Brooks that she still had faith in him. After staring at her with longing eyes, Brooks walked off into the cold night. Category:Characters